


to deck the halls that we once walked through

by sunsxleil



Series: Merry Christmas, I Love You [11]
Category: Carol (2015), The Price of Salt - Patricia Highsmith
Genre: Angst, Christmas Angst, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-13
Updated: 2020-12-13
Packaged: 2021-03-11 05:20:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 965
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28049877
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunsxleil/pseuds/sunsxleil
Summary: As it is, somewhat sharing custody over Rindy means that Carol and Harge divide her Christmases between them. To make it less depressing, whoever would not have her for Christmas would have her the week before. Either way, Carol and Therese loved having Rindy over.But Rindy's thirteen, which means she's starting to know how to make decisions for herself. Including where she'll spend her Christmases.
Relationships: Carol Aird & Rindy Aird & Therese Belivet, Carol Aird/Therese Belivet
Series: Merry Christmas, I Love You [11]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2035672
Comments: 7
Kudos: 31





	to deck the halls that we once walked through

**Author's Note:**

> Trigger warning (TW) on the fic before anything: homophobia.
> 
> This is a headcanon that has stuck with me for a while now, since the last time I reread The Price of Salt and read the line "Rindy was a conservative". Christmas angst this time! Prompt from a little Google search where [this list](https://oneshotsandheadcanons.tumblr.com/post/167716040859/christmas-prompts) popped up. Hope you guys will still enjoy this!

There isn’t really anything Therese can do.

At the corner of Therese and Carol’s living room, Rindy’s gift is tucked behind the foot of the Christmas tree. That’s the best way to keep a thirteen-year-old from averting their attention to the presents as soon as they step in the living room, right? And Rindy was going to spend her Christmas with Harge this year, so they prepared her gift early, so that when Rindy came here the week before Christmas, she’d have an early Christmas in the Madison Avenue apartment.

Well, she was _supposed_ to.

“And you said it was Rindy on the phone?” Therese asks Carol. Carol can’t quite look at her, and Therese hates the look in those eyes, as if they should’ve seen this coming somehow, as if they should’ve known this was going to happen.

“Yes, darling. That was the first thing I told you.” Usually, Carol gets mad at Therese for asking one too many times about things she already answered. This time, Carol just sighs, shoulders weighed down, eyes looking like they’ve cried rivers without shedding a tear.

“So… she won’t be coming this week?”

“I don’t think she will be coming again, Therese.” Carol shakes her head. “That’s that.”

Rindy hadn’t minded too much years before about the arrangement she was in. Sure, she found it odd that Mommy and Daddy didn’t love each other enough to keep from divorcing, but Mommy seemed happy with Aunt Therese to keep her company, and Daddy looked like he was doing better than he used to. But kids grow up, and Rindy had grown out of being four, five, six years old, and could no longer unite the concept of Mommy and Aunt Therese just being ‘special friends’ when they were always holding hands or kissing each other’s lips when they didn’t think Rindy could see them.

That was obviously it, wasn’t it? And, anyway, Rindy was a conservative.

“She’ll-she’ll come around, won’t she?” But the way Carol looks Therese in the eye shows her the storm that has been brewing there for a while now. Should Carol really have chosen the life she had? Either choice would have brought Carol pain, eventually, and choosing Therese had just delayed it by a few, fantastical, wonderful years.

“I just wish I’d known last Christmas would have been the last,” Carol says, burying her face in her arms. “I would’ve done it a lot grander if I’d known.”

Therese sighs, and pushes off from her seat across Carol at the kitchen table, rounds the table and wraps her arms around Carol’s shoulders. Carol feels heavier now, her arms limp, an evident effort present when Carol brings her hands up to grip at Therese’s back.

“You did great, last Christmas,” Therese whispers into Carol’s hair. “Rindy loved it, didn’t she?”

But, would they not kid themselves, they’d be able to say that the past years hadn’t been golden either. Therese knows of the phone calls Carol gets from Harge, berating Carol for ‘ _living that kind of life_ ’ every time he hears a whisper of Rindy getting bullied at school for having separated parents and a lesbian mom. _“And she hates that, you know,”_ Harge would say, _“she doesn’t like them insulting you like that, but she’s beginning to see you’re doing it to yourself.”_

So, Rindy was growing older, going to school, and she was growing more and more into a conservative, the type her grandparents would approve of and the type who would eventually lose love for her mother.

Could she really be so cruel?

“I don’t know, Therese.” And Therese hears in Carol’s voice the tears she keeps at bay—if Carol cries now, she will not stop crying even well into the night. Still, Therese wishes Carol would just let herself cry. “Maybe we’re just wishing that she did.”

Carol’s grip on the back of Therese’s blouse is getting tighter, and Therese wants to cry for Carol, and a bit for herself too. She had begun thinking of herself as somewhat of Rindy’s second mom and, Therese will admit, some days she dreamed of what it would be like if she and Carol did end up as Rindy’s moms, and they’d attend her graduations, her birthdays, and who cares if anyone looked at them weird? Rindy loves them, and they love her, and nothing else mattered apart from that.

Just a fantasy, it seems, that whole dream of hers.

“Do you want to pretend that she loved it here last Christmas?” Therese whispers. “At least until it hurts a little less?”

Carol shakes her head into Therese’s shoulder. “It will hurt like this no matter what we do, my love.”

Therese rests her hand on the back of Carol’s head, and Carol’s shoulders begin to shake, then Therese hears the first of the sobs. Therese holds on to Carol, and they slide down onto the floor as Carol’s sobs get stronger, resolving into cries and silent wails. Why? Why does the world have to be so cruel? Therese closes her eyes to her own tears, and she tries to silence her own pain with a kiss to Carol’s head.

They got Rindy a whole violin this year. She told them she wanted to take some lessons and perform in a recital by the end of next summer, but she couldn’t get around to asking her father when Harge seemed to prefer Rindy playing the piano. Now, the violin stays untouched behind Carol and Therese’s Christmas tree, will be for a while for sure. They will have no visitor the week before Christmas, and their Madison Avenue apartment will be one wonderful daughter short; their home will be one person less this week, and every week following will feel emptier, especially Christmas.

**Author's Note:**

> The prompt was: "I can't believe you're not gonna be home for Christmas." I've been itching to write a fic where (pre-teen to teenage) Rindy gives in to 1950's society added to her being a conservative, where she basically breaks Carol's heart. This prompt fit right with it, so I indulged myself with this little fic. (Also I've kind of been listening to Taylor Swift's newest album on repeat, so there's those vibes too. Title also gotten from Track 2 of Taylor's new album.)
> 
> Anyway, all mistakes are mine, and I don't own the characters—Patricia Highsmith does. I hope you guys are doing alright. Happy Carolmas!


End file.
